57 pages • 1 hour read
Louis SacharThere's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1987A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Louis Sachar
Louis Sachar is the author of countless books for young readers. His most famous book is probably Holes (1998). Winning the John Newberry Medal for its contribution to literature for young people, Holes has much in common with There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom. The main character, Stanley Yelnates, is accused of stealing valuable shoes. As a punishment, a judge sends him to the cruel Camp Green Lake with other unlawful young boys. Stanley isn’t a thief, and Bradley isn’t a “monster,” and both boys have to transform their identities and become good people. Bradley changes his antagonistic behavior by doing homework and making friends. Never quite a “monster,” Stanley reinforces his good qualities by teaming up with another marginalized boy, Zero. As with There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom, Holes presents adults as frequently ridiculous. Holes also subverts gender norms—the fearful head “honcho” of Camp Green Lake isn’t a man but a woman.
While There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom features many humorous moments, it’s not quite as outlandishly funny as some of Sachar’s other stories. Yet even his sillier stories connect to There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom. Sachar’s series of Wayside School stories focus on children at a school that’s 30 stories high (there’s a classroom on each floor). As with Bradley, Jeff, and the other characters, the characters in the stories have trouble conforming to norms. In Sideways Stories From Wayside School (1978), Joe can’t count, and Sherrie falls asleep during class. Yet Mrs. Jewls, like Carla Davis, accepts her students’ differences and, more or less, teaches them that norms are malleable. In Wayside School Is Falling Down (1989), Dameon falls in love with Mrs. Jewls, similar to how Bradley loves Carla. The Wayside School stories also explore intense feelings.
Literary Context: Realistic Children’s Fiction
There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom is realistic children’s fiction, which presents children in plausible situations. Young readers can follow Bradley’s story and relate to his predicament—it’s realistic. They can, hypothetically, identify with his worries about making friends, coming across as a “monster,” trying and failing, and breaking the rules (the “norms”) of birthday party etiquette.
Andrew Clements’s novel Janitor’s Boy (2001) puts a young person in a realistic situation. Like Bradley, Jack is in the fifth grade. Similar to Bradley, Jack has fears and anxieties. Yet Jack is upset with his dad, the school janitor. People think it’s bad to be a janitor, and they make fun of Jack. While Bradley transforms himself into a good person to prove he’s not a monster, Jack tries to transform himself into a bad person—better put, a good person who does a bad thing—to demonstrate that he’s not like his dad. Jack experiences transformation and growth when he realizes his dad is a good person and there’s nothing shameful about being a janitor.
Louise Fitzhugh’s novel Harriet the Spy (1964) centers on a girl around Bradley’s age, Harriet. Bradley creates his separate world with his toy animals, and Harriet builds her distinct world by observing (spying) on people and writing down what she sees in her notebook. As with Bradley, Harriet has trouble with her friends and the inherent vulnerabilities of coexisting within the larger world. Harriet, too, has a deep relationship with an adult—her nanny, Ole Golly. Echoing Carla, Golly treats Harriet like an adult and tries to get her to think for herself. Harriet becomes dependent on Golly, and Bradley relies heavily on Carla. Both children must realize that they don’t need their mentors to excel. They have it within them to prosper.
There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom arguably alludes to another famous work of realistic fiction, Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (1960), where a sixth grader, Margaret, tries to pick a religion that suits her. In There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom, the characters don’t focus on religion, but Colleen’s parents accuse Carla of trying to pull her away from Catholicism and into Zen Buddhism when Carla quotes from the work of the 20th-century Zen Buddhist American writer J. D. Salinger.
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